Authors: Mercedes Keyes
Sylvia walked down the hall with her brows drawn, wondering who would be at her door this time of night. Her daughter and husband weren't due to pick up the boys until tomorrow evening. Slowly she walked into the kitchen, and the tap, tap, tap, happened again. She walked to the door, clicked on the porch light and opened the dark green vertical blinds. To her shock, standing beyond her door—looking sheepish—was her neighbor. She bit hard into her lip not to let the smile that was automatic, show. Seeing him opened a window to what his presence really meant to her. Sighing, she opened the door, unlatching the screen lock. He pulled it open.
"Can we please stop this? Whatever it was that I did to cause this, I'm sorry for my part. Here, my piece offering. Please accept them?" Looking sheepish and trying to fight a grin, Everett held up the bouquet of wildflowers from the area grocer. Noting that they were from the grocer, Sylvia couldn't help commenting, "And when did you get out to the store? I didn't here your roaring engine take off down the road." She simpered, then reached up, taking the flowers.
"Ma'am, I also have an SUV, and I thought it was more appropriate for after dark. I don't care too much for riding my bikes in the evening," he explained, standing in the doorway.
"I see. Well, thank you for the flowers." She brought them to her nose and took a sniff, glancing up at him as she did so. He leaned in the doorway, crossing his arms. "I caught a little smile on your face. You gonna forgive me and let me come inside?"
"I thought your presence was just to give this peace offering. I didn't know it was to be a visit." He shrugged, unsure of what she wanted to hear from him, but he knew he wanted to come in. He wasn't going to turn away unless she told him otherwise. "Well?" he questioned.
Sylvia sighed and did her part by finally confessing, "It wasn't all you. I'm sorry for blasting you earlier. Annd, I should not have turned my back on him. It was my fault, not yours, but the me-naked-and-the-bat-story…well, that's entirely different," she finished.
"Please forgive me for that?" he asked, ever so charming and sincere.
"Lord have mercy, look at you! You ain't nothing but trouble, Everett Styles, and standing at my door with it," she sassed in her black dialect. He grinned and flexed his brows. "Oh, no you don't, sir, you just listen here. Let's get something established, right now," she began, cocking her hip, finger pointing in his direction as if he didn't know that it was him she was talking to. "Do not come in here with any of the little things you do to dazzle women, trying to impress anything upon me. Don't make any sudden moves. Conduct yourself as a gentleman at all times, and we will be just fine."
Grinning huge, he stood and saluted her. "Yes, ma'am!"
She chuckled. "Ha, ha, ha, very funny. Come on in." She stood back from the door, giving him permission to enter. Stepping in, he glanced to the left of the partition separating the kitchen from the living room, surprised at the spaciousness of the place. Then to the kitchen, which was just as spacious. "Nice place you have here," he began. Sylvia smiled, closing the door behind him. "Thank you. I like it. I saw it first over the internet, then drove here to see if what I saw was really so nice, and well...the rest is history," she informed him, coming up behind him.
"Is your stay going to be long enough that I should take your jacket from you?" she asked beside him. He looked down at her, into her eyes; braving his inspection, Sylvia held the eye contact, knowing as she did so, she probably shouldn't have. He had beautiful eyes. She swallowed.
"Well?"
Giving a secret smile. "I guess that's up to you, lady. You're the one in charge here."
"Here." She reached up for his jacket. "It's warm in here. You may not stay a long time, but perhaps long enough for me to make you feel welcome, comfortable...for the time you are here." She was trying to soften up and let him know that there was another side to her. He shrugged from his jacket and handed it to her, asking as she walked to hang it in the hall closet.
"I take it the boys are sleeping?" Wrapping it on the hanger, she smiled, nodding, hooked it on the rod, then gently closed the door. "Yep, they played a bit more, ate dinner and watched a little TV. I bathed them, and now they're in the bed sleeping for the entire night, I hope," she finished, observing him as he looked around her home. Noticing her little collection of graceful statues of ballerinas and other poses of women figurines that exhibited feminine elegance and taste. They were everywhere, as well as many plants and silk flower arrangements of varying sizes, shapes and colors fitting in wherever she found a place to put them. On the walls, votive candles and sconces adorned portraits and pictures in a variety of scenes, skillfully arranged with balance and completion.
"Does everything meet your approval?" she asked, awaiting his verdict on her decorating style. He turned his gaze on her, making sure his eyes took in all of her before he answered, "More than."
She cocked her head to the side and rolled her eyes. "Oh, brother...you just can't help yourself, can you?" She smirked, walking by him to the kitchen. "Just because you're a good looking man, and no doubt you've charmed women everywhere, you think ‘it's surely got to impress her’," she finished, entering the kitchen with him close behind. "What would you like to drink?" she offered, not waiting for his reply to her estimation of him.
"You're so sure about me, aren't you?"
"Not sure, no. A beer? A Pepsi? Tea, a wine cooler, or ice water?" she asked again, holding the refrigerator open and waiting. "I have seltzer water as well," she added as an afterthought.
"Pepsi on ice. I only drink while entertaining, special occasions, so not often." Her eyes widened in surprise by that answer. So much so, that she almost said to him,
Good answer.
That impressed her. The six pack of beer had been in her refrigerator since she moved into the house. There were three of the four initial coolers left from when her real estate agent brought them to toast her getting the house and closing. She handed him the Pepsi poured over ice. "Thank you," he murmured.
"You're welcome."
In the Living Room…
"So, what made you move here...to this small town?" Everett asked, sitting on the sofa across the room from Sylvia, who sat comfortably on the love seat with her legs crossed up on the seat Indian style. "The house. The population. The seclusion. A true small-town, farming community. I grew up in the big city with crowds of people. Sirens, traffic, noise, a high crime rate and the feelings of insecurity were beyond what I wanted to continue to be exposed to. And last, my kids moved to La Crosse to attend college and now they live there. So here I am...what about you?"
He drank more of his Pepsi, looking comfortable and at ease. "The peaceful solitude, and I too, needed to get out of the rat race. The type of people I began to find myself in the midst of, didn't sit well with me. I didn't grow up in California, I grew up in a farming community, much like this one. Rising early in the morning to get the cows milked, cleaning out the stalls, removing the old hay, replacing it with the clean, doing stuff like that. That was my life. Nothing like what I live now."
Sylvia was surprised. This she had not expected to hear from him. "I see I've surprised you," he observed and stated. She nodded softly. "Yes, you have. That was the last thing I expected to hear. I always wanted the kind of life you just described, but it was not meant to be. My life was quite different," she announced. He finished his beverage. "Well, farming is hard work. Back-breaking sometimes, and it's a dirty job." Sylvia smiled. "But someone has to do it," she inserted. "Did you hate it so much, that…that's why you left it?"
"No, I didn't hate it at all, but for a hobby sometimes on lazy evenings I would sit and draw on the front porch, or off by this stream that flowed out past our backyard. My mom noted how good I was, and for Christmas she bought me my first art set, sketching pads, and later came my first canvas and tripod. I painted a lot of pictures of our surroundings, country scenes, things like that." He started grinning then, and deep dimples showed up in his cheeks. Sylvia smiled, admiring him and those dimples.
"Why are you suddenly grinning?"
He chuckled, remembering back. "I painted my first nude at 14. I went down to the stream, further than I usually go and there was the neighbor's wife stretched out, butt-naked for all the world to see, taking a nap by the stream. I quietly set up, and started painting her."
Sylvia's mouth widened with an exclaiming gasp. "Oh, my goodness, no you didn't!" She chuckled.
"Yes, I did." He laughed, shaking his head. "My mother later found the portrait hidden under my bed. Needless to say...she was not happy. Got my art stuff taken away from me for a month," he finished, shaking his head, then focused on Sylvia sitting across from him. He stared. She stared. They were quiet. She grew nervous.
"Let me paint you?" he asked softly in the dimly lit room. She smiled softly, shaking her head. "I don't think that's a good idea. As a matter of fact, I think it's late. You should go now. I need my sleep; the boys will be up early tomorrow." Her legs unfolded as she slowly rose from her seat. She stood a moment looking down at him as he stared up at her. Saying nothing more she went to get his jacket from the hall closet. Setting his glass on the coffee table, disappointed, Everett sighed and rose.
Standing before him now, she handed him his jacket. "Thanks for the flowers. That was a very nice gesture. Sorry I've been such a...well, not a nice person." She smiled looking up at him, but decided she was much too close for comfort and stepped back, then turned leading the way to the kitchen door. Putting on his jacket where he stood, Everett finally turned and joined her at the door.
"Thanks for inviting me in. For the Pepsi. For granting us peace, and a last request...please, let me give Isaac a ride on my motorcycle, grandma?" Sylvia grinned, looking up into very beautiful blue-gray eyes. She couldn't decide what color they were from one moment to the next. She sighed and blew out, giving in to her need to exhale. "Sure...I know that will be the highlight of his visit here. Thank you for offering. I guess I'll see you tomorrow sometime." He nodded, staring into her eyes.
"You can count on it, lady...you can count on it." He turned and left. Closing and locking the door behind him, Sylvia suddenly ran across the room and clicked on her front lights to give him visual aid in his crossing the road, then ran to her big windows to watch him. He stopped midway through her front yard, turning to wave at her. She climbed on the loveseat, parting the curtains so that he could see her, and waved back. He turned and took off at a lope across the yard, the road and onto his driveway, up to his porch...stopping at his door and next he was gone within. Sylvia sat there staring for moments longer than she realized. Unaware, that he too, stood in his window out of her view, watching her silhouette there. Long moments went by with both gazing longingly, to be back with the other.
Bright and early, Sylvia found herself at the kitchen sink filling a pot to start boiling water for grits. Darren was the first to awake; thank goodness Isaac was still asleep. Her preference was that they wake at separate times, as it made her task easier to deal with them and their morning needs. Content in his high chair, Darren sat making baby chatter mixed in with a few words as he followed his grandma around the kitchen with his eyes, patiently waiting for his instant oatmeal. Having placed the pot on the eye to start heating after adding salt and butter, Sylvie went to the fridge locating the bacon. Closing it to walk over to the stove, she stopped dead in her tracks. First caught with her peripheral vision, she turned to see an early morning visitor. The neighbor. He'd just stepped up to the door, following with his tap, tap, tapping.
Smiling in gladness before she realized it, she walked to the door, opening it and looked up into a bright smile with his silhouette blocking out the morning sunrays. Upon seeing her, his smile became even bigger, showing straight white teeth. With a sigh, Sylvie reached, unlatching the screen door. Turning away, leaving him to enter as she went to the stove opening the bacon to lay out in the pan.
"Good morning!" he started immediately upon entering, carefully closing the door behind him.
"Good morning to you, and please tell me, sir, why you're up so early and over here? Isaac's not up yet," Sylvie asked, then informed him after finishing laying out the bacon, having automatically included enough to fry up for him.
"I'm hungry!" he shot simply, directly. Surprising Sylvie, who couldn't help chuckling.
"Oh, are you now? And what, dear sir, has that to do with me?" She was grinning.
"Well, are you not about to prepare breakfast?" he asked as if it were a perfectly normal thing to be at her place in the morning for breakfast, and the discussion about it usual.
"Yes, I am preparing breakfast, but who invited you?"
"You did," he answered, walking around her to take a seat at the kitchen table next to Darren. "Good morning, lil’ fella, you hungry, too?" he asked, turning away from Sylvie, who stood incredulous with arms crossed under her breasts.
"Excuse me, but when exactly did I do this?"
He looked at her with the most engaging smile. "I was sleeping, and as I slept, this subliminal message from you woke me. You said—this is what you said…” Standing with his hands on his hips, trying to gesture as she would, working his neck trying to imitate her with a high pitch to his voice. "…Everett Styles, get yo’ tail outta dat bed an' get ova here so you can get yo'self some breakfast! An' don't lemme have'ta call you agin!"
Resuming his normal voice, “That's what you told me. So here I am." He flexed his brows mannishly, grinning.